


Lift

by Niki



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-04-28 19:54:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14456565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niki/pseuds/Niki
Summary: Laughter coils in his chest, bitter like bile, at the memory of their team, on a suicide run, most likely dead, and all for nothing.It takes a while for Jyn and Cassian to leave the lift.





	Lift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nic/gifts).



The jump to hyperspace almost kills Cassian.

All the time he was making his way back up the tower, saving Jyn from Krennic, saving Krennic from Jyn, he was bleeding inside.

Jyn knew that. Knew he was dying, knew no one took a fall like that and walked away with just the limp. She knew she was dying, too, knew her father's creation was going to be her doom, and in that lift she accepted it.

She met Cassian’s eyes and knew. Their time was done but they had done enough. Someone else could finish the job. They could rest. 

She had never in her life felt as close to another person as she did that moment, when they shared the knowledge of death and accepted it for themselves and for each other. The acceptance, the peace, she found during that ride was everything. 

And then they exited the building and there was a ship.

Krennic’s ship, she realised, and even as she thought it, Cassian was straightening against her body, lifting the blaster. 

No one came to inspect, and when they made their way in, it was empty. It was empty, and space worthy, and part of Jyn was still in the lift, still convinced this was it yet… she could die in a ship just as well as on a beach, as long as Cassian was by her side.

There was no time for more than a hurried call to anyone of Rogue-1 still around. All they got in return was silence, and as Jyn imagined she could already see the glow of the Death Star’s weapon, she punched it.

And Cassian passed out from the shock of making the jump.

*

“Cassian, wake up. Come on, Cassian. Captain Andor!” 

Jyn’s voice sounds as if it comes through the haze and Cassian straightens in his seat.

“I need your codes,” Jyn says.

Cassian shakes his head, then immediately regrets it. 

“Access codes, Cassian. We’re approaching Yavin 4 on an Imperial ship.”

His head feels too heavy, his eyes have trouble focusing, but Cassian finds the console and feeds the algorithm by touch memory. 

Then he must pass out again because when he surfaces next he is surrounded by medical equipment and an irate Jyn. 

“What do you mean they lost it?” she’s yelling, and Cassian feels the sinking feeling in his stomach, more than just the medicine being fed into his system, and doesn't want that to mean what he thinks it means.

Laughter coils in his chest, bitter like bile, at the memory of their team, on a suicide run, most likely dead, and all for nothing. 

He makes a sound, not quite laughter, but it's enough to bring Jyn to his side, anger turned to sadness, desperate intensity on her face the sight Cassian takes with him to darkness. Her face, and her hand in his.

*

Cassian is in a tank of bacta for days, his insides slowly knitting back together. Ships limp in from the space around Scarif, but none from the surface.

Jyn remembers Baze’s voice calling her little sister, the way Bodhi’s hands never shook on the controls of a ship, Chirrut’s calming presence. She remembers the faces of the people who followed them to Scarif, the camaraderie of a single flight. She remembers the way K2 and Cassian moved next to each other, like they were both programmed for it.

There is a lot of time to think while she guards the tank, and ignores everyone trying to talk to her as soon as she determines they are not bringing her new info about a miraculous survival of anyone else.

She thinks of Saw, the years she missed making him a shadow of his old shelf. She thinks of Galen, who wanted to tell her so much but never asked a single question. She thinks of her mother, choosing death with her husband over living with her daughter, and looks at Cassian, and understands a lot of things.

There is still a war. There is still the Death Star. But her place is here, in the moment between life and death, where Cassian lies suspended.

*

“They found the schematics,” Jyn says, the first words Cassian hears after waking up in a bed. He occasionally surfaced in the tank, hardly conscious enough to form a memory, but he thinks he knows Jyn was there, all through it.

“Good,” he says, and meets her eyes.

“It's on its way here.”

For a moment he is back in the lift, meeting Jyn’s eyes, knowing they are going to die and welcoming it.

“They have a plan. The trap my father built in the system.” Jyn sounds emotionless with her recital, but Cassian can see her eyes, can see it all there. “All the available pilots are launching. They’re preparing to evacuate the rest. You are not cleared to fly.”

He doesn't ask whether she means as a pilot or a patient, because he knows it doesn't matter. One can only run from a super weapon for so long.

Only now does he pay attention to the bustle around him. They're emptying the medbay.

“They wanted to save the tank,” Jyn says. 

No wonder he still feels like his insides are scrambled. He wasn't done healing.

He doesn't tell her to go, because he can see from her eyes she’s also back in the lift with him.

He moves to the side, just a little, and she crawls onto the narrow bed beside him.

*

Jyn’s left arm is around Cassian, her right hand holding to the kyber crystal on her necklace. It is a reminder of so much more now. Her mother’s voice mixes with Chirrut’s, the smells of Jedha and Eadu with her childhood home.

“I always thought I was alone,” Cassian says, musing, right where she is, again. “But I always had Kay.”

“I can be rude to everyone we meet,” Jyn promises.

She doesn't even need to fear Cassian takes that the wrong way, not here, not at that moment, and he proves it by trying to pull her closer with arms that have very little strength.

*

They won.

The words seem to have no meaning. 

There are screams, and laughter, and they can see shapes hugging in the corridors. 

_The young Jedi did it_ , they hear, and Cassian thinks of Chirrut in the cell on Jedha, calling on the Force. 

_The smuggler came back to help_ , they say, and Cassian remembers Jyn’s face, here on Yavin, determination having replaced the stubborn resignation. 

_We're safe._

But Cassian was always safe, in the lift with Jyn, never as close to another being, never in as much peace. 

“We have to leave sooner or later,” she’s saying now, smiling, and he knows she's right where he is, still.

They will never be as close as this. They will never be as safe from reality. They will hurt, and fight, and kill, maybe each other too. But they will live, too, for all the people in Rogue-1, and they will love their way back into this peace, even if only sometimes.

Cassian can hear the sound of the lift door sliding open when he struggles to sit up.

“Let's go be rude to our betters.”

* 

They give medals to the Jedi and the Smuggler, but they name the new squadron of ships Rogue.


End file.
